The highly-tal­ented fouryear-old fin­ished sec­ond in a 900m heat be­hind Syreon with Don­caster Mile win­ner Ran­gi­rang­doo tri­alling well in third.

‘ ‘ H i s t r i a l w a s g o o d , ’ ’ Hawkes, who trains in part­ner­ship with his fa­ther John and brother Wayne, said of Maluck­y­day.

‘‘ They just out­sprinted him, they didn’t go overly hard but he hit the line well and that was all that was asked for.’’

T h e s o n o f Z a b e e l a n - nounced him­self as a staying star when he rose through the ranks dur­ing the spring to win the Group Three Lexus Stakes ( 2500m) at Flem­ing­ton be­fore a game sec­ond to Amer­i­cain in the Mel­bourne Cup ( 3200m).